


When all is told, we cannot beg for pardon

by vcmw



Category: Tortall - Tamora Pierce
Genre: Alex's point of view for the canonical catacomb fight scene, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, literally just 1k of bitter bitter internal monologue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-28
Packaged: 2018-12-07 22:13:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11632986
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vcmw/pseuds/vcmw
Summary: From Alex's point of view, The Song of the Lioness is a horror story.





	When all is told, we cannot beg for pardon

Alexander of Tirragen sharpened his sword while Delia of Eldorne chattered at him about Duke Roger’s plans. If there were justice in the world, Alex would have been surrounded by his friends. They would have helped him to prepare for the challenge ahead.

His friends had abandoned him. They’d slipped away from him one by one, following Alanna as she made a mockery of every rule that mattered. Even Jonathan had left him in the end. Now he had to make do with Delia for company. He would rather have been alone.

Duke Roger knew what Alex planned to do. But Duke Roger did not know why. Duke Roger had no honor to betray, no loyalty to the gods who had abandoned them. He could never have understood.

Alex wore all black as a bitter joke that no one else recognized. Squires wore white when they underwent the Ordeal of Knighthood. He was already a knight of the realm. He was preparing for an ordeal of his own choosing, a challenge to the gods he feared had forsaken him. What else should he wear but black?

He led his men-at-arms into the catacombs. The stone room had none of the Chamber’s solemnity. It would have to do. He stood with his naked blade in his hands and waited for Alanna. While he waited, he prayed to the gods who had never once answered him.

Alanna came running in to the room like an answer to his prayers. He knew better. He knew Alanna would not understand that this duel was a Trial they were both undertaking. That was all right. He didn’t need her to understand. He just needed her to fight him one more time.

“You can stretch if you like,” he said. He must observe the forms.

“You want to play best squire at a moment like this?” Alanna said.

It wasn’t play. It had never been play.

“Think what you like,” Alex said. He was done explaining himself. Only what the gods thought mattered, and they would know his intent.

He faced Alanna and raised his sword. When they both fought by the rules, he was better than Alanna. If she had never come to court he would have been the King’s Champion. But Alanna didn’t fight fair. She had never fought fair. She’d learned from thieves and commoners and she fought like a thief and a commoner.

Besides, it wasn’t about proving that he was the best knight. She’d never understood that. Duke Roger had never understood that. It was about proving that the kind of knight he had trained to be was the right one. That the Code and the Law were on his side. A trial by combat was about establishing the will of the gods.

Their swords clashed in the torchlit room.

For a moment he thought the gods were listening to him. That perhaps there was some shred of justice left in the world. Her magic sword, just one of the unfair gifts she’d been granted, flew into the corner of the room.

He had disarmed her. He needed to kill her, as she had killed Duke Roger. He shook off the horrible thought that even if he killed her she might, like Duke Roger, come back again.

He leveled his sword point at her throat, swallowing tightly. “Say farewell, Lioness.” He would grant her that. She should have the opportunity to concede. She should have the chance to understand.

“An honorable opponent would let me get my sword and continue.”

He shook his head. “I learned what I need to know.” He smiled, shaken by the impossible lift in his heart. His arm felt light. His sword was weightless. After all that had happened, after all their years of silence, the gods favored him. “You were good, I admit that.” He had always known she was good. It was just that she was also wrong. He had to make her understand that. “But I knew I was –“

And Alanna broke the rules, the way she always did. He’d won, but she couldn’t admit that. She kicked him into a wall. A true knight, the kind of knight Alex had trained to be, would have accepted defeat with the loss of his sword.

She had no honor. She dirtied everything the Code stood for. He charged at her with the desperate hope that this once the world would be the world he’d been raised to believe in. That justice would prevail.

That last hope shattered as she destroyed his face with a series of blows no knight would have used. They were pressed together, body to body. He felt his own bone pierce his skull. He knew he had lost.

Alex had been losing from the moment Alanna came to court. She’d taken everything from him without ever wanting to or even knowing what she’d done. When he was a page he’d wanted to be shaped into a sword to defend the kingdom. He’d never expected Jonathan’s friendship; it had been a gift he could never deserve and never repay. He’d planned for duty. He’d followed the rules when he became Duke Roger’s squire. He’d upheld the law. He’d fought for the kingdom. He’d done nothing wrong, but all his friends had slipped away from him. They’d lied to him and they’d cheated the law. They’d made a mockery of the Code of Chivalry. Yet somehow, at the end, he was the one cast as villain.

The worst thing wasn’t that Alanna cheated. The worst part was that when she denied cheating, when she claimed to love the Code, she believed it. No matter how may times she broke the law, Alanna was always convinced that she played by the rules. Why shouldn’t she be convinced she was on the side of right, when the gods always rewarded her?

He wished just once she'd known what it was like to have all your choices fold away into a straight line. He knew, bitterly, that if that happened she would just turn, draw a new line, make a new path.

Alex had always been bound by the Code, by the Law, by circumstance, in a way Alanna was not. He wondered where he would have walked if he could make his own road. It was too late to ask. There would be no more roads for him. He’d risked everything on one last plea to the gods, and the gods had answered.

The gods had chosen her as their champion. They had chosen to destroy the world he’d grown up in and build a new world in its ashes. He couldn’t draw another breath. He couldn’t make a sound. He must not scream in the Chamber of the Ordeal.

Alex died silently in his enemy’s arms.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Louis MacNeice's poem, [The Sunlight on the Garden.](http://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php?date=2003/01/01)  
> Note edited to add: This is a point of view swapped re-write of the fight scene between Alex and Alanna in the catacombs during Lioness Rampant. The dialogue and the fight scene blocking are direct from Lioness Rampant. Just the 1k of Alex's bitterness is new. It occurred to me now, a month plus later, that if you haven't just re-read the original scene eight times in a row that might not be obvious. I *think* this kind of POV swap falls within the general purview of fanfic (it was definitely a good writing exercise!), but I'm rawly new to fanfic and suddenly very unsure about that. I changed the tags and added this end note to clarify.


End file.
